As outrage over Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill continues, advocates for the soon-to-be law that would limit classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender have resorted to an interesting ally to argue their case: a pro-Trump influencer who participated in the Capitol riot.
On Monday evening, several Florida officials are set to participate in a Twitter Space town hall hosted by Brandon Straka, who was sentenced to three years of probation in January after admitting in a plea agreement to taking a shield away from a U.S. Capitol Police officer. The event—titled “Don’t Say ‘Don’t Say Gay’” and run by Straka’s “#WalkAway Campaign”—will also feature state Republican Reps. Joe Harding and John Snyder, several conservative LGBTQ pundits, and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, who has come under fire recently for her anti-LGTBQ rhetoric.
“Every Republican is being maligned nationally by the left’s latest manufactured crisis. Why? Because they’re headed into brutal midterms,” Straka wrote in a Monday tweet promoting the 8:30 p.m. event. “This affects every Republican—so be there tonight!”
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Now, some lawmakers and residents are enraged by the idea that the latest attempt to market the upcoming law features a far-right influencer and self-described “former liberal” who is best known for starting “#WalkAway,” an online campaign that urges liberal voters to leave the Democratic Party.
“An insurrectionist joined by a group of MAGA trolls and GOP lawmakers is not an ‘honest discussion’—it’s unhinged, anti-LGBTQ propaganda,” Democratic state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, the state’s first LGBTQ lawmaker who has been a vocal critic of the bill, said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “This desperate attempt at damage control after the public turned against DeSantis on ‘Don’t Say Gay’ won’t work.”
Democratic state Rep. Anna Eskamani told The Daily Beast that Republican leaders in Florida were “on a damage control tour” with the bill, “trying to mask its intent and impact with bombastic comments and insults.”
“Instead of addressing legitimate concerns Floridians have of the bill, they’ve referred to us as ‘groomers,’ say we ‘haven’t read the bill,’ and are trying to mislead the public in saying that the bill prevents ‘sexualization’ of our kids. False,” she said. “The bill explicitly targets LGBTQ+ people and tonight’s Twitter space is just another extreme example of how far they’ll go to feed into their lies.”
The bill, SB 1834, was passed last week and will ban “classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through the third grade in Florida schools. Set to be signed by DeSantis this month, it also prohibits any teachings “in a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
Crucially, the bill will also require school districts to notify parents if there is a change in their child’s “mental, emotional, or physical health or well-being” and the school’s “ability to provide a safe and supportive learning environment for the student.” Schools would be prohibited from “encouraging a student to withhold” information from parents—which advocates say could force young people to out themselves, even at their own risk.
LGBTQ advocates—and even President Joe Biden—have slammed the legislation for its “hateful” implications and an unprecedented amount of power it gives parents to sue schools for alleged violations. At least a dozen schools have staged walkouts in protest. It has inspired other states, like Georgia, to attempt to pass similar laws that would harm already marginalized communities.
Brandon Wolf, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting and an activist with Equality Florida, noted to The Daily Beast that the bill “is based on the hateful premise that LGBTQ people, simply by existing, pose a threat to children and that our community must be erased in order to curb the number of people who feel comfortable being themselves.”
“This bill is a danger to LGBTQ students and adolescents in the state,” Democratic state Sen. Annette Taddeo added to The Daily Beast. “And none of the topics in the bill are even taught in those grades. There is no example of any teacher or any class where this has happened.”
Taddeo, a gubernatorial candidate, said she’s “not surprised” by Monday night’s town hall because it not only mirrors DeSantis’ political rhetoric but may be used to appease his base for a “future presidential run.” (DeSantis’ press secretary told The Daily Beast on Monday that DeSantis is “running for re-election as Governor, not for president.”)
“It’s very clear that the governor has a press secretary there for a reason. The more outrage they can bring, the better he does in the polls,” Taddeo said. “This bill is a nightmare—but I’m not surprised at all that any of this is happening because this is all about his future political ambitions.”
DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, has already faced backlash for sharing deeply offensive opinions about those who do not support the bill—including a tweet stating that anyone against it is “probably a groomer.” As previously reported by The Daily Beast, Pushaw also raised eyebrows in November after appearing to peddle an antisemitic conspiracy theory. Later, when pressed, she walked back the claim by stating it’s everyone else who’s fueling conspiracy theories.
“The bill that liberals inaccurately call ‘Don’t Say Gay’ would be more accurately described as an Anti-Grooming Bill,” Pushaw wrote in a March 4 tweet. “If you’re against the Anti-Grooming Bill, you are probably a groomer or at least you don’t denounce the grooming of 4 8-year-old children. Silence is complicity. This is how it works, Democrats, and I didn’t make the rules.”
Pushaw defended her decision to participate in Monday night’s event and its host, telling The Daily Beast that Straka’s “perspective on the parental rights bill as a gay conservative (and that of many other gay conservatives) has been completely ignored by the mainstream media narrative.”
“I don’t believe people should be shunned from public life indefinitely because of their worst mistake, which in Brandon’s case was a misdemeanor for standing on the Capitol steps for 8 minutes,” she added. (In his plea agreement, Straka admitted that he recorded himself at the riot urging a crowd to snatch a riot shield from a police officer—shouting “Take it! Take it!”—and urged the MAGA crowd to break into the building while Biden’s electoral certification was ongoing.)
Pushaw also pointed to a Monday Twitter thread by Straka in response to Smith’s allegations, in which he claimed he was “not an insurrectionist” for pleading guilty to a misdemeanor relating to the Capitol riot.
When asked if DeSantis was aware of her participation in Monday’s event, Pushaw said that she was “not sure” because “it’s not something I’m doing during work hours.” “I’m just going to speak about the media narrative on the bill and the types of loaded questions our office received and how the corp media used false framing from a progressive activist group to describe the bill,” she added.
But Democratic state Rep. Michele Rayner, the only openly lesbian member of the Florida Legislature, said “it’s telling and shameful that an employee of the State of Florida and spokesperson for Governor Ron DeSantis is aligning themselves with someone who participated in the violent assault on our Nation’s Capitol and leadership.”
“It is a desperate attempt by Republicans who aligned with Trump to stay in power because they can’t do so by actually working for the greater good,” Rayner added.
For Taddeo, the idea that GOP members who pushed the bill will now be promoting it alongside Straka is probably “the most eye-opening about the state of affairs in the state.”
“It feels like some lawmakers are just passing laws to stay in the good graces of the Governor,” Taddeo noted. Republican Reps. Joe Harding and John Snyder did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Smith said the Monday night event just “underscores the desperation of Republicans trying to take control of the message around the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.”
“It says something that the best they could do in setting up a panel to defend this bill is a bunch of MAGA trolls and an insurrectionist. They have no mainstream voices pushing this bill,” he added. “I don't know who half of these people are, but they appear to be the most extreme voices from the right. This is anti-LGBTQ propaganda. Where are the voices of Gay Floridians here? It’s gaslighting.”
